


Beneath Walnut Shells

by rin0rourke



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Evil, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Curses, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Magical Accidents, Pilots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2018-10-20 03:18:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10653801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rin0rourke/pseuds/rin0rourke
Summary: Love is not a victory march.Jackrabbit week.





	1. The unhatched egg

_“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad (p. 198-199).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis_

*

Aster did **not** like to fly.

As he double checked the harness that strapped him into the cramped seat of the gumpack sized plane he was reminded exactly why. The plane bucked and shuddered against an unseen enemy and beyond the glass pane was only eternal darkness. A gripping plummeting feeling in his stomach that could have been fear or motion sickness had him swallowing thickly and fighting against the urge to shut his eyes.

“Sorry there’s no leg room.” The voice of his pilot did not come from an intercom overhead but from directly beside him loud enough to be heard over the noise of the plane.

“No worries mate,” Aster assured him around the choking lump in his throat, though his long legs were already protesting it was hardly his most prominent discomfort. “Yer saving me from having ta wait out the storm and hours of grief from me mates if I’m late.”

“My pleasure. I was heading out and I had the seat, lucky I did too, the last trip before a storm tends to be a big load.”

The rattle of cargo behind them backed up his statement well enough. If the Bearhawk hadn’t been a four seater it was likely Aster wouldn’t have had even this chance to reach North’s. “You ah, you fly often Mr. Frost?”

“Just Jack is fine, and since I was old enough.” His pilot flashed him a grin as white as his hair at the obvious anxiety in Aster’s voice. He knew he didn’t look much older than a college student. “I know what I’m doing, worry not. I’ll get you there in one piece.”

The nausea begged to differ, if the constant rocking didn’t let up soon he was going to scatter pieces of his digestive system all over the cockpit. It didn’t help that outside the winter sky was black as death. A half hour ago they had passed over water and he had caught sight of the midday sun barely peeking over the horizon before they had disappeared into the arctic winter’s night once more. In a few days even that much sun wouldn’t be able to creep over the land.

The plane banked to the right and the thought of some invisible mountain lurking ahead sent his stomach lurching. "Oh stewth," The plane shuddered again and Aster swallowed both bile and pride and closed his eyes, imagining green and warmth and not the thought of falling who knew how far into the cold and dark.  
  
"Relax." His mentally unstable pilot knocked their knees together teasingly. "You're going to give yourself a panic attack worrying over nothing."  
  
"All I can see is nothing." Aster shot back.  
  
"Stop thinking about it." Jack’s voice was still steady and confident in spite of flying blind. "Talk to me, get your mind elsewhere. Tell me something about yourself, what do you do for a living?”

“Paint, mostly.” Another shudder and he was digging his fingers into his knees but he took a deep breath and concentrated on the conversation. “I live off the land, grow things, farm and such, hunt.”

“That's one way to not be a starving artist.”

“Too many rabbits in OZ to starve.”

If they had been driving a car Aster imagined they'd have screeched to a halt, as it was Jack pinned him with a look as wide and blue as the afternoon sky should have been in any sane part of the world but the arctic. “You hunt rabbits?!” his shout was high pitched and horrified.

“I’m a greenie mate, but rabbits are invasive down under.” Aster defended.

“Yeah but, can't you like catch them without killing them or something?” Jack argued. “There's no way there are THAT many rabbits in Australia, isn't it like a death trap?”

“You live in Alaska.” Aster pointed out, “You gonna spit the dummy over hunting here? It's not like there's a Garden of Eden out in the never never. People have’ta eat.”

Jack's face got that tight constipated look of a person who didn't want to admit the other person in an argument had a point. “Well I don't think I can kill a bunny, even hungry.”

“You garden enough, you learn ta hate the little buggers, even if you don't eat them.”

Jack's pout only got more severe. “You know what? I’m calling you Bunny now.”

“Why the Hell would you?”

“To guilt you obviously. To remind you of those poor defenseless bunnies you murder every time you hear it, and me,” Jack pointed to himself with one hand, “you'll remember my disappointed face.”

“We're never gonna meet again once we land.” Aster reminded him, wondering how ‘defenseless’ Jack would find a bunny who's kicking and biting in his hands.

“You'd be surprised how annoying I can be in a short amount of time Bunny."

“Somehow I don't think I would.” against his will he found the corners of his mouth tugging up.

“Is that an insult? Are you insulting me Bun? I am **offended**.”

“Yer serious about this Bunny thing ain't ya?”

“I'm always serious about being annoying.” Jack confided with a smirking nod to himself. “It's one of my finest skills.”

“Aside from flying I hope?”

“Flying’s not a skill,” Jack informed him fiendishly, “it's my god given talent.”

“That's a statement ya might want t’make before you bring a bloke up a thousand feet.”

Jack let out a long trickling stream of laughter too light and free to match his deep voice. It was a laugh that had likely never been stifled.  
  
“What made you want t’be a pilot?”

“Aren’t we supposed to be talking about you, cottontail?” Jack teased.

“I already know everything about m’self.” Aster answered with his own grin. Jack’s easy laugh was infectious, and he felt himself relaxing.

“When I was a kid, about 14, I missed the tour bus back to my town before a big storm. I was pretty upset about having to spend the last few days of my vacation waiting out the storm instead of with my family. Then a bush pilot offered me a lift. He had a few drops to make, and I was happy to help if it meant I got back home in time.” Jack's smile as he looked out the windshield spoke of the fond memories he saw in the darkness ahead. “I loved it, though I was no doubt annoying as fuck with all my questions and badgering he never got angry with me or irritable. I had this image in my head of racing against the storm, flying over Alaska with mountains and snow and forests, you can imagine the impression it left on a teenager.”

Aster could imagine it well. A sullen kid rescued from boredom and disappointment and taken on a daring adventure over beautiful wilderness, racing the clock. How it must have thrilled him.

“I got my taste of flight that day, and I couldn't stand to be on the ground after that. I needed wings.”

“Was it hard to do?”

“In Alaska? Never.”

“Dangerous though, ever crash?”

“Ah ah, you have reached your skip limit.” Jack announced. “Now it's time to talk about, guess who? Yourself.”

Aster scowled, but it was half hearted. "M'from Australia, came up to visit my mates."  
  
"You told me that much when we met." Jack's blue eyes were on him for an instant, amusement making them scrunch at the corners. "Do you like it there?"  
  
"Can't imagine living anyplace else."  
  
"Good. It's good to have a home you love."

"What about yerself?" Something about that comment felt wrong.  
  
"I used to, but since I lost my family it's pretty much just been me and the plane.”  
  
Ah, so there it was. "No place to overwinter?"  
  
"I have a few places, but nothing that's really a 'home'."

“Sounds lonely.” Aster regretted the words as soon as they were said, but he couldn’t bring himself to backtrack. Instead he simply said what he felt, “sound’s like me, when I was young.”

“Were you lonely?” Jack’s question was lower, barely audible over the noise of the cockpit.

“More than I can explain.” It still hurt to think of it, those years passing by in a haze of terrible isolation. “For so long I forgot what not being alone felt like.”

“You forget you’re even alone.” Jack’s voice was a whisper, it shouldn’t have been heard over the noise of the plane at all, and yet it resonated in Aster’s ears with an unearthly clarity. “You start to think you like it better that way.”

“Yeah, that's it.” Aster breathed, “That's exactly it.”

They lapsed into silence, the noise of the plane becoming a physical blanket of comfort around them as the topic settled and an obvious wound was allowed to fade to a dull ache again.

Then suddenly Jack grinned. “Check your pieces cottontail,” he said, nudging Aster with an elbow, “We’re about to land.”

Through the darkness a light shimmered into view, wavering like a mirage. A few more minutes and Aster realized what he was seeing was the outline of towering hills of ice surrounding North’s home, and the glow was the light pollution just beyond the obstruction.

The plane descended and he was surprised his stomach didn't pitch, somehow through the conversation his anxiety had faded and his motion sickness had calmed to a faint cramping in the gut.

North's runway was hardly more than a few thousand foot road of ice but it was enough for a four seater bush plane to touch down. After so long of staring at nothing but black the lights from the town were brilliant and fantastical.

A low whistle had him looking back to Jack. “Now this, this is pretty. You don’t expect to see this kind of thing this far out from the cities.”

“It’s North’s pride and joy.” He wondered what it looked like, so someone so used to the Alaskan wilderness, to see the towering buildings and glittering lights. He wondered if Jack had ever been to a big city, or if his travels only brought him from the coast to the backwoods towns and back again. “Ye ah, ye wanna come in, have a drink?” He asked, his nerves tiptoeing in new directions now that he was back on thrice blessed Earth. “North would be happy to have ya.”

“Wish I could.” Jack sighed, “But I still have two stops to make before the storm hits, and I want to be someplace safe myself.”

“One of yer ‘not homes’?”

“Yeah.” There was a wistfulness in his eyes as he looked at Aster, and he didn’t imagine the longing to accept the invitation in them. Jack would join him if he could, but circumstances what they were…

“You failed.” Aster said suddenly, and Jack jerked back.

“What?”

“You weren’t nearly as annoying as ye could have been.”

Jack’s sour candy pout returned and Aster found himself resisting the urge to lean over and take a bite. “Just you wait, Bunny, the next time you have your sights set on your fluffy kin you’ll think of me. I know it.”

“We’ll see.” Aster smirked, and grabbing his duffel he exited the plane. He doubted very much he’s be forgetting Jack Frost anytime soon.

As cold as it was inside the cockpit, Aster had forgotten to brace himself for the outside. “Fuck.” he swore as the temperature gripped him and stole his breath. It was the sudden silence, however, that struck him the most. After the constant noise of the bush plane, the snow covered world around him felt unwelcoming.

He turned to wave back at Jack, but both he and the bearhawk were already gone.

“BUNNY!” North’s shout cracked the silence like breaking ice and Aster spun on his heel to face his oldest friend.

“Did ye see it?” he demanded.

“No, you didn’t even set off wards.” North marched over to him like a looming disaster, face severe. “I waited for you, but until you appeared just now, there was no sign.”

“And the time?”

“Seventeen oh nine. Same as the reports.”

The presumed time of death.

“I was worried, Bunny. When the hour approached but you did not.”

Bunnymund looked out onto the landing strip, searching for some sign, some hint of a plane arriving, but the snow along the road was undisturbed. Just like the snow in Dutch Harbor. Jack had appeared out of the night, and into the night he returned.

They had crossed miles of land and ice in complete darkness within a single hour, within the same time it had taken for a hundred and twenty pounds of adolescent curiosity to board a three thousand pound plane, and sink with it below the ice.

And yet the person he flew with had never even hinted at such a tragic end. There was no anger, no vengeance, and no ill will towards the person now sitting in his vacant seat. Just the ghost of a boy doing what he died dreaming he’d one day do.

Rescuing people from boredom and racing the storm.

“He’s not dangerous, North.” Bunny said softly, remembering the smiling face of the boy playing at being a pilot as he spoke of the man who killed him. “I don’t think he even knows he’d dead.”


	2. What Do April Showers Bring Again?

_“On the one hand, shopping is dependable: You can do it alone, if you lose your heart to something that is wrong for you, you can return it; it's instant gratification and yet something you buy may well last for years.” Judith Krantz_

_*_

 When his powers had first manifested Jackson Overland had not in his wildest dreams imagined they would lead him here.

 At most he had figured he’d be transferred to a cold storage facility, or a cryogenic stasis unit. He had eagerly registered his elemental ability with the goal of a higher wage and better benefits for himself and his family. Maybe move somewhere out of the lower city levels, somewhere high. An apartment with a view that didn't include the next building’s wall and waste storage.

 Now he was opening his own store.

  **His** , not a franchise location, not a corporate office, not a temporary crisis building. All his.

 He looked at his twenty employees, his employees, gathered at the entrance, the sliding glass doors polished to invisibility, and couldn't feel his face for the amount he was grinning.

 “Tomorrow is opening day.” he said, though the countdown on the tack board behind him had been saying so since this morning, “and I can say that I have never had a team work like you. I know it's not what most of you were hired for, but you all came through as a team and did an absolutely fantastic job putting this store together.”

 They didn't share his joy, he knew. They were hourly employees, with lives and responsibilities of their own, and this was just a job, but he didn't blame them for that. Thirty years ago working in the factories he had been the same, two years and three months ago when he had handed in his resignation as the manager of a small unit in the Department of Climate Control he had been the same. Just another clock punching, hour counting, putting in the work for someone else employee. Until he had finally struck out on his own.

 “I know there have been setbacks, the tropical department’s humidifier is still being unruly,(an understatement) and the glacier dispensers haven't come off the truck (even though they were due two weeks ago), but I want you all to know how proud I am of you. We came in this morning with a lot of work still ahead of us, but I can say that this store is as ready as we can make it.” And it was, from the perfectly zoned shelves to the spotlessly cleaned floors. Each and every corner of his store was the physical manifestation of his dreams. “So go home and get a good night's sleep, because at nine am I want all of you back here for the grand opening.”

 They cheered, and it felt like a stadium of people applauding. It felt like the end of the movie, when the hero won the game, and the team rushed together in shared glee.

 As he watched them file out, heard the whisper quiet shh of his doors, he imagined every day like this.

 Though he hoped the anxiety would dampen over time. He pressed a hand to his stomach that was cramped and aching from his constant worry. If this went on he’d have another ulcer in no time, and hadn’t he left the DCC because it had been stressing him? The bureaucracy, the politics, the smug smothering presence of those in power? He had hated it all, but what he had loathed the most was sorting through file after file of weather requests. Simple target storms that could have taken him five minutes to create, but his hands had been tied. A farming town in a mild drought, a conservation under fire threat, a mountain resort without snow that month.

 But they were short staffed, and his job involved too much time and resource management. Budget cuts and politics ruled in his old job, a drought kept people dependent on municipal water, the Forestry services were confined to natural weather unless under extreme circumstances, and of course the fact that government resources could not be used to aid private businesses.

 Denial after denial after denial had weighed on his heart. They were not natural disasters or difficult jobs, nothing that should have been banned. They were simply not important enough for the government weather service to waste time on. But Jack, who had sat in an office after spending thirty years climbing his way up trying to find a way around that red tape, who had chafed under the constant reminder that he and those under him were nothing but a ‘government resource’ to those in power, who had always always remembered the years in the factories as an ungifted, an unwanted unusable uneducated drone good for nothing but building magical devices for those greater than himself, they were important to him. He had wanted nothing so much as he had wanted to find a way to help them.

 Now he had.

 Jack smiled as he picked up one of the snowglobes from the display, his personal favourite. An instant snow day. With the proper tools any weather pattern could be seeded, and Jack had spent the past thirty years studying how to do it.

 His life in the factory had paid off.  Very few magical people bothered making their own things these days, that was the job of the ungifted, whose lack of talents made it near impossible to contaminate or sabotage the tools. For the first twenty-seven years of his life he had been trained on how to create things of a magical nature without any knowledge of the magic itself.

 Then suddenly he had gifts, talents, a rare and intimate connection to the weather. His ability to radiate cold, not dispel heat or transfer it, but to physically devour the energy around him and use it to fuel his gifts made him one of the best weather witches in the country, possibly the world. Few could create as he did, and fewer bothered to.

 Replacing the globe he began to close up for the night. He had a little under seven hours before he had to be back and preparing the store for his employees to arrive.

 Grand opening. His belly did little flips at the thought. Would people buy? He hoped they would, he hoped he had finally solved the problem everyone was facing with their weather system. The monopoly of power centralized in the hands of the government, and the dependence on said government for fair skies.

 As he lowered the gates in front of his wide windows he thought of what the world would be like now that anyone could have a little storm of their own. The problems it would solve, the pranks it would inspire. How soon until someone broke a rainshower over a wedding? How long would it take before kids unleashed snowdays on school grounds? He couldn’t wait to find out.

 Just as he was shutting off the lights and heading to the upper level and his own living space the bell at the back buzzed aggressively through the dark store.

 Irritation slashed through the nerves. The sign clearly said closed. The banner over the store had the exact date for their opening. They had handed out fliers all week with the information of when they would be opening and at what time. Still, still he had dealt with people walking into the store all day as they had been trying to work. He had had to set up a door guard for just that purpose, like a fucking Walmart greeter.

 The bell continues to buzz like a pissed off bee as he stomped back down the stairs and to the doors. His nerves were beyond strained,and while he hated to give any kind of poor impression to a potential customer he was not, currently, at work. He was at home, and the store was closed. Right now, he was just another person, and he was very very tired.

 Taking his nametag with its _MANAGER_ title off and smacking it down on the greeting booth with glee he unlocked the beloved glass doors and shoved one open. It offered no resistance, all debris vacuumed from it’s slot.. “What?” he demanded.

 A large creature of indeterminate species cut an imposing figure against the parking lot flood lights and he had the sudden realization that answering the door in the middle of the night was a very good way to get robbed.

 Then the upper part split and, aside from the quick hysterical horror that it was the jaws of a monster opening to eat him, he realised the person was not in fact a towering eight foot tall beast but a moderately sized Pooka.

 “Ye got a Humidifier need fixin?” The alien asked. It was.. It was not a voice Jack would identify as Pookan.

 “You’re late.” Jack straightened, hoping he hadn’t gawked. “I put in the request two months ago, Opening Day is tomorrow.”

 “The unit ye got here is registered in D.C. ye wanna explain how it got to Pennsylvania?”

 Jack’s irritation doubled and he swallowed the sarcastic insult because of fucking course the paperwork hadn’t been updated, why had he expected anything else from the Government. “Its a decommissioned unit.” He explained, with Pooka it was important to be to the point. They had, as he had quickly learned, no sense of humor. “I requested it as part of my retirement package when I left the DCC.” It had been the only thing he wanted, and he had still plucked his way through a tangled knitting basket’s worth of red tape to get it. Just because something was sitting in a junk storage somewhere didn’t mean the government was going to give it away. The Government’s livelihood depended on them being the only one to have something. Only the legal assurance that he wouldn’t be using it to form his own vigilante weather service made them let go.

 “Come in.” He sighed and stepped back to let the alien through the doorway, closing and locking up behind them. “Its this way.” He led the Pooka through the departments, weaving past the displays and around the aisles. It was tantamount, he knew, that no customer be able to reach their goal immediately. There had to be some form of meandering, some light browsing, otherwise the store invited bankruptcy. Impulse buys lined every fixture, the cheapest of their items, anything under $20, and things he believed would catch the eye. As he walked he flipped through his mental plans for each aisle entrance fixture. He had a department for seasonal events of course, but it was important to put that holiday in the mind of the more focused shopper. Someone just coming in for a garden storm wouldn’t think of the approaching halloween, so one needed to have the fog charms out on full display.

 “Quite the place ye got here.” The Pooka’s comment was unnerving. Jack had never met a Pooka who volunteered an opinion in anything but dry facts. His experience was that they prefered not to interact at all, and simply be left to their work. Jack had braced himself for being dismissed as a distraction as soon as they arrived to the unit.

 “Its ah, its pretty great yeah. I’m happy with it.” He said, and ran a hand along a shelf full of sunshowers. They looked like fist sized golden marbles with a twist of blue at the center. The slide of his fingers across the display had them humming, the familiars within them singing like crystal at the presence of their creator.

 “Quite the bunch of familiars ye got here, must’ve taken an army to make ‘em.”

 "Hmm? No.” Jack informed as he opened the barricade that separated the aisles from the employee station within the department. “Its time consuming, but I make them myself.”

 “Ye made all these?” The Pooka looked alarmed. “It must’ve taken ye YEARS.”

 “Oh it did, two full years, but it was worth it.” Jack picked up one of the waiting crystals with his familiar inside, too parched to be anything but a little scout yet, but with the right amount of water it could become any storm he wished. Working with the DCC he had created an endless amount of them, sending them out into the world like sheepdogs to herd storms towards the assignment, after he had always simply let them free, he had never had the heart to cannibalize them as others had done, but over the years he had learned that he was the exception.

 “T-TWO YEARS?” The Pooka sputtered, and that was a unique experience, watching a member of the unflappable Pookan race gape at him wordless. “How are ye not in a **coma**?” he demanded.

 “I’m a weather mage,” Jack explained, as he had done a thousand times before, “ but my talents are cold creation.”

 “Ye can’t.. Ye can’t **create** cold.” The Pooka explained, like the frustrated teachers who had tried to guide him in the ways of magic after developing his talents so late in age.

 “I can. The energy in the matter around me feeds my magic, instead of taking it from myself, and makes everything cold.” He had never taken it to an extreme, the world they lived in was teeming with ways for magic users to replenish themselves, so he had never proven if he could reach absolute zero, but he didn’t doubt he that could. “This is the unit, we rewired it and changed out the crystals, even replaced most of the outer panels, but it’s still not functioning.” Jack put his hand against the flat stone box, looking to the untrained eye like any other green granite counter.

 Jack had paid his supplier North a fortune in high compression ice to get his hands on that much green granite. Witches loved nothing more than aesthetic.

 The Pooka was studying him in a familiar way, Pooka were frequently giving him the side eye at the DCC as they went about with their many inventions, they were not permitted to interact with the local populace, and often didn’t care to, working only with the planet’s governing forces. Trading their magical technologies for resources only Earth could provide. They had always given Jack the creeps, with their rigid speech and severe faces, he had never been able to reconcile their personalities with their far too adorable appearance.

 They also had an uncompromising dislike for the mentioning of their resemblance to Earth rabbits. Which Jack couldn’t make sense of.

 If Jack had looked at all like something adorable on an alien planet he would milk it for all it was worth. That was grade A bartering material there. But he didn’t expect a race that sneered at all things emotive to understand the importance of such a bartering chip.

 “Well, lets start her up and see what the problem is.” The Pooka said after moments of uncomfortable silence. He bent down on his haunches, his long legs perfectly made for squatting peeked out from under his green coat and Jack realized the alien probably wasn’t wearing any pants, at least not the loose floor length ones he associated with them.

 The sight of the delicate black pattern against soft grey fur caught his eye. He had never seen a Pooka out of their strict military dress robes, but this one was in nothing but a long green trench coat, he knew from offhanded rumor that they had clan markings magically dyed into their fur, but had only seen what was prominently displayed on their foreheads.

 The panels, easily six inches thick and a literal pain in Jack’s back to take apart slide aside easily under the Pooka’s hands, claws ticking musically against the granite. “Everything seems t’be working proper like, ye did a good job restoring it. What seems off?”

 “Its not that it isn’t working as it should, its not working the way I want it to.” Jack explained, passing his familiar between his hands. “Its a life support system for familiars.”

 “Yeah, in extreme circumstances. Its supposed ta collect the atoms and humidify the air even if there is little t’no water present. Not exactly life support though.”

 “You’ve never been in a forest fire.” Jack countered. “Normally our familiars herd storm systems, or collect water vapors and create systems if there are none, the humidifier can take water fed into it and replenish a system, and as such any weather or other water based familiar. My problem is that it should be able to transfer that humidity to a dormant familiar, just as a water spirit can be sealed away in an item, but every time I try nothing happens. I can’t figure out what’s blocking the machine from storing the humidity.” Jack sighed and leaned over the top of the granite counter, rolling his familiar between his hands. “Its a pain to keep dunking them in the fountain to gather the water I need for the storms, and its costly. Water is not cheap, even for a weather witch. I can’t rely on the air around my customers’ location, many of them are buying storms because there IS none around them, and I can’t guarantee a familiar will herd for a customer without me there. Too far out and they tend to drift off by themselves.”

 “Wait.” The Pooka held up a paw, and Jack was surprised to see the little pads of skin on the tips were black instead of pink like his nose. “Yer telling me that this machine, hand made by Pooka to create vapor into the **air** to create life supplying storms for undeveloped planets, and ye want t’use it like yer refilling water bottles?”

 Jack had expected irritation from a Pooka, they were almost religiously strict about how their technologies were allowed to be used, and any kind of adaptation was considered an insult. This one though, seemed like he was trying to talk around a mouthful of laughter.

 “I’d hardly call my familiars ‘water bottles’.” Jack said cooly, staring down his nose at the smirking alien. It was an act he could only do while the creature was hunched over, since he barely reached halfway past five foot himself.

 “Ye want t’just lob those little crystal balls o’yers into this box and fill em up with water.” That was unmistakably a cackle. Was this Pooka mad? Had the DCC, in retaliation for his retirement, sent him the one malfunctioning Pooka in the whole damn galaxy?

 “Is that a problem?” Jack asked, smiling with far too much teeth.

 “Not one bit.” The Pooka said, and unbuttoned his coat to reveal nothing but a leather strap underneath. The sight of so much fur openly displayed on the normally prudish species had Jack jolting back embarrassed.

 “W-what are y-” he stammered.

 “M’gonna modify it some.” The Pooka explained, tugging his strap over his head and opening the pack. He began pulling out small items that Jack recognized as tools of their trade, it was the only thing aside from the ears that were comfortably familiar about this encounter.

 They had sent him the crazy nudist of the species. He was going to absolutely ruin that department. He was going to make them so obsolete the Politicians would be clamoring to underfund them and absorb them back into the EPA. He was going to turn the whole damn planet into a paradise just to spite them.

 “These older gen models were built t’be gifts.” The Pooka explained as he set to work taking the humidifier apart. “To keep them from being abused as a source of water for only those in power, or a weapon to storm out an enemy, they were outfitted with a few failsafes. One being that they can’t create water themselves, only add vapor into the air for natural storms to form.” he pulled out several of the crystals powering the object and set them aside, reaching in deeper to delicately wiggle out the panel holding the fist sized created lapis Jack had received as a gift from his mother for his thirtieth birthday. He held his breath around his objection, his mother had few years left, and it had taken her most of what she lived to buy that for him. Savings that she had scraped to send him to a technical trade school he would never see. “We just need to bypass those little restrictions.”

 “And then I can use it on my familiars?”

 “When I’m done with it, ye can use it for yer own personal **lake**.”

 Jack made a pleased sound in his throat and leaned back, grinning. The Pooka’s ears swiveled in his direction, but he remained elbow deep in the device. “So,” Jack asked before the silence could extend farther, “I didn’t catch your name?”

 The Pooka ears flicked in what Jack recognized as irritation, like he was being harassed by an ear obsessed fly. It was a reaction he often got when chatting with Pooka, and he signed, resigned to being dismissed after all.

 “Bunnymund.” The alien mumbled. “E. Aster Bunnymund.”

 Jack gawked. He couldn't help it. Bunnymund. **The** Bunnymund. The Pooka’s, Bunnymund’s, ( **BUNNYMUND'S** oh gods he was going to have a panic attack) ears flinched like they wanted to lay flat but stayed erect through force of will. Jack realized he was probably making an absolute fool of himself as he stared but _**BUNNYMUND**_ , the actual **FOUNDER** of the planet, the Pooka who had terraformed Earth and the closest thing they had to a living God was in his store TOUCHING HIS THINGS.

 Oh gods he’d snapped at him. He’d actually told Bunnymund, creator of continents, that he was late. He was going to die of humiliation.

 He wanted to apologize, he wanted to shower Bunnymund in gratitude for fixing the device **he invented** and bypassing what was probably his own failsafes so Jack could use it to- Oh god Bunnymund had called them _waterbottles_. He wanted to die. He was going to burn the store down with himself inside it.

 Instead he blurted out “Why are you _naked_?” in a voice that didn't even crack.

 Something that embarrassing should not have come that casually from his mouth.

 Bunnymund’s ears perked up stiff in his direction. “Ah.. I run.”

 “You… run?” that made … **no** sense.

 “Underground mate, I have me tunnels. Gets me everywhere, but they’re a bit cramped, ye follow?”

 “You run.” Jack repeated, his imagination conjuring the image of the Pooka running full tilt like a rabbit in a tunnel. He couldn't help it, he laughed. It was long and gasping, and Bunnymund looked severely pissed off, he couldn’t stop. He'd try, but as soon as he saw the Pooka’s face he'd laugh again. “You.. on all fours.. and naked!”

 “Oi!” Bunnymund stood up, insult in every tense quivering muscle and bristled tuft of fur, but Jack just slid down, back to the shelf of his familiars, and laughed until he couldn't breath.

 It had been a long day.

 He fully expected Bunnymund to collect his things and storm off, leaving Jack with a half dismantled Humidifier, but the Pooka seemed to deflate as Jack calmed down.

 “S’not that funny.” Bunnymund mumbled.

 “Have you **seen** your species?” Jack choked out from behind he breathless grinning. His stomach had cramped again, but he wasn't sick with nerves this time so he didn't care. He did need to pee now though.

“Course I have.” Bunnymund said tersely. “Bunch of a-holes.”

Jack gaped at him all over again, then cackled.

“Don't start that again.” Bunnymund warned.

“I can't help it.” Jack grinned. “My hero is a crazy swearing Australian and fixing my box, naked. I’m having the BEST dream.”

“Ye have bizarre dreams there mate.”

“You're in one.” Jack informed him. “What does that make you?”

“A crazy naked Australian?”

Jack laughed again. “okay, no more.” He begged. “I need to pee. I can't laugh more.”

“Thanks for sharing.” Bunnymund crouched back and started work on the Humidifier again.

“You're welcome.” He chirped.

Bunnymund grunted, but didn't reply. Probably afraid Jack would go crazy with laughter again and piss himself.

 Jack just sat cross-legged and watched. Bunnymund was much more animated than the Pooka he normally interacted with in the DCC, more interesting. His ears moved, instead of staying focused on his work Bunnymund seemed to be listening to his own thoughts, they displayed more emotion, frustration or interest as he attempted to recreate his invention, and they turned towards Jack often. He would frown, his whiskers vibrating, but his eyes stayed on his work.

 Jack didn't mind the silence, unlike the other Pooka Bunnymund didn't creep him out at all, and he was very nice to look at. Like a very pretty rabbit, with all his fur on display and fluffed up from his previous agitation Jack had the very powerful urge to reach out and touch him.

 But even with an eccentric Pooka, that was a good way to get your hand chomped off at the wrist.

 He signed, it would be nice though.

 Bunnymund's ears turned towards him and he held out a paw, surprising Jack. Fuck, had he spoken out loud? Did Bunnymund… was he going to let him touch him?

 “Ball.” he demanded.

 “What?” Jack flinched at the green glare that earned him, but clued in. “Oh, here,” he passed Bunnymund the familiar still in his hands.

 Bunnymund set the granite panels back into place and stood, slapping one of the premade plastic sheets Jack had next to the device onto the counter he placed the crystal in the center of the inked design and began to mutter the humidifier’s incantation.

 There was no glow, no noise or surge of magic. The air simply got heavier with moisture, like breathing too long in a confined space. Then Jack’s familiar began to hum, and in a snap, like a crack of electricity, the moisture was gone and in the center of the crystal was a thick twisting band of blue.

 “Ha! Nice!” Jack scooped it up and surveyed the globe, searching out his weather spirit for any signs of discomfort. It seemed happy, less thirsty, and eager to get out and play. His familiars were always very friendly.

 “Wow, this is awesome. I can't believe it worked. Which spell did you use?” Jack leaned over to study the template. Whistling when he recognized the fire suppressant spell he had crafted for drought seasons. “That's a powerful spell, a good strong soaker storm,” and not a template he intended for general sale. Custom order only. Too bad, he disliked when a powerful spirit had to sit for too long, they got irritable. But a forest wasn't likely to complain about a thunderstorm. “You okay?”

 “S’fine.” Bunnymund’s eyes slid sideways, not meeting his gaze. The spell wasn't as exhausting without creating the familiar, but it still took a good chunk of power, and Jack doubted Bunnymund could grab it from the air the way he did. “No worries mate, its not my first time.”

 “Okay.” Jack let it go, magic users tended to get irritable if you babied them, especially if you did something that would knock them on their ass and looked fresh as a daisy the way Jack always did. Egos were abundant among the gifted, so he didn't push.

 “I'll buy it.” Bunnymund declared, and Jack looked back at him.

 “Excuse me?”

 “Its for sale right?” Bunnymund demanded, and why did he look so pissed off? Didn't it work? Wasn’t this a success? “I’ll buy it.”

 “Um.. yeah but.. are you sure? It's a pretty big storm. Not criticizing, I should have had that template stored, but do you have the room for it?”

 “I live in Australia mate. Got a whole continent.”

 Jack held the crystal closer. “You're sure?”

 “Is it for sale or not? Blimey.” the Pooka snapped, and Jack had a good view of teeth.

 “Y-yes.” He looked between Bunnymund and the familiar, trying to decode the suddenly tense situation. “Here, this way.”

 Jack led the way back towards the registers, mind retracing the last few minutes. He knew he’d probably irritated the Pooka when he laughed, but the guy had settled down and got back to work after. Why, if he was so pissed off, did he want to buy a storm? Did he want to smash it in the store and cause chaos? Surely someone as old and powerful as Bunnymund knew Jack’s familiar wouldn’t act out while Jack was there to command it. So.. why?

 Jack waved a hand over the register, his sapphire ring activating the device without prompting.

 “If ye have them set for runes, why the key cards?” Bunnymund asked, indicating to the employee cardswipe.

 “I have ungifted employees.” Jack explained as he calculated the price based on his estimate of the square footage it would cover. “I don't discriminate based on talents.”

 “Progressive of ya.”

 “Not really. My family is ungifted, I’m an anomaly.”

 “That why ye let yer hair go white?”

 Jack paused in wrapping and tugged on the hair at his ear self-consciously. It had silvered in his late forties and he had, like others, dyed it to maintain the image of eternal youth. But after leaving the DCC he hadn't really bothered. Why should he, when his mom and baby sister were struggling with their mortality and he hadn't changed a day beyond his awakening.

 His cells, taking energy from the world around him, simply did not age.

 “Yes.” He answered simply and changed the subject. “This large a storm will be $350, American.”

 Bunnymund tugged a wallet out from the pocket of the coat slung over his arm and handed Jack a credit card. Normally Pooka paid in gold or silver, but what about Bunnymund had been normal anyway?

 Jack handed the Pooka his card back as well as the glossy blue paper bag with his familiar, Bunnymund's familiar now. “Thanks for fixing my box.” Jack tried to salvage at least some part of the conversation. “You'll get most of your money back when you bill me.”

 “No charge mate. Its in my contract.” Bunnymund gruffed.

 Jack was left pondering that as he unlocked the cage, and then the glass doors to let the Pooka go. “Well, thank you, regardless. I probably shouldn't have charged you for the storm then.”

 “She’s aces.” Bunnymund walked past him.

 Well, if that's how it was, then that's how it was. It wasn't to first brush off from a Pooka he’d gotten. But...

 “Actually, there is somethin.”

 “Yes?” Jack looked up eagerly. In the beat of a heart Bunnymund had a fistfull of Jack’s shirt and Jack had a facefull of… face.

 He blinked rapidly, mind trying to process the sudden position he was in. Bunnymund was.. They were. Were they kissing? They were. They were absolutely kissing.

 Bunnymund pulled back and grinned wickedly at him. “Revenge,” he explained, “for laughing at me.”

 “Oh.” Jack said stupidly brain numb.

 “Sweet dreams mate.” With a tap of his foot he disappeared down a hole in the ground and Jack was left staring blankly at the the the...the WEED growing out of his freshly laid concrete.

 He reached up to touch his lips, but missed and ended up brushing his cheek instead. It didn’t matter, an entire side of his face tingled from the kiss, the fur against his nose and cheek, the way every time he blinked his eyelash had brushed against Bunnymund’s face, the feel of.. Of of of.. the feel of..

 Jack closed the door mechanically, shutting the cage and locking it and turning off the lights. Mind still… minding…. with thoughts and junk.

 Then he was struggling to get it all open again because if he left the flower there it was sure to get trampled by his employees on their way to work.


	3. Cloven From Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soulmate

“There is no such thing as a soulmate… and who would want there to be? I don’t want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul.” -Rachel Cohn  
  
*   
  
He was tired. So damn tired.   
  
Tired of waiting, tired of wanting, tired of being left alone begging for scraps of attention.   
  
Was it really so much to ask that the person who was bound to him actually love him?   
  
Soulmate. He scoffed at the name, as if it meant anything at all. As if it meant you would be cared for, cherished, protected.   
  
At the very least tolerated?   
  
He wasn’t asking for much. Just..maybe a visit now and again? To let him know that he hadn’t been abandoned.   
  
It’s not like he asked for this. Its not like it was HIS fault they were bound together for the rest of their lives. He hadn’t done anything wrong.   
  
Anything but be born the way he was. Cold, and small, and weak.   
  
Maybe there was nothing redeemable about him but so what, so what?! So that gave them the right to just, curse him and leave him? Alone? For three hundred years?   
  
Well he was done. He’d found a way, finally found a way, to end his suffering, and he was going to take it.   
  
And let the others try to stop him.   
  
*   
  
  
Bunny had to admit, this was not what he had in mind when they had sent him to handle an “incident”.   
  
The boy had been bound and gagged, chains like a python strangling him, to the point where Bunnymund would actually argue excessive force. He had been stopped, well and truly stopped, before he had been able to follow through with his plan, so Bunnymund didn’t understand why they thought they needed his intervention for something like this.   
  
He crouched down to study the boy, hardly more than a child, and the bindings that restrained him. Already they were beginning to ice over, it didn’t take a genius of his calibre to know the spirit would soon break free. His powers were without a doubt strong, able to eat through another Seasonal Avatar’s binding spell, but then Autumn and Winter were of a kind weren’t they? So maybe he was needed after all.   
  
Reaching out he tapped a finger to the dirt and called forth his own prison. Beneath his hand green began to sprout, thick and lush and eager. It writhed around the boy, who thrashed in alarm, before shooting up tall and proud, it’s velvet soft petals a transparent prison.   
  
“That’s a tulip mate.” Bunnymund informed the ice spirit kindly as he shattered the chains and lunged for the deceptively fragile flower he now found himself within. “Gonna be a mite difficult for ye to freeze it, but ye can try.” he inclined his head and turned to the waiting Seasonals behind him, letting the accused rage uselessly against his fragrant prison.   
  
“Mind?” He indicated the circle and the others stepped aside for him to examine. In the center, where the Heart of Winter waited, sealed in every powerful spell the Guardians and their allies had been able to conjure at the time and every one they had perfected since, was a simple wooden stick. It seemed unobtrusive enough, except that it was sticking out of the ice three levels of magic away from the cursed thing.   
  
Too close, far far too close. The thought of what could drive anyone to seek such drastic measures, much less a child, chilled him more than the glacier cavern they stood within. The Heart of Winter would devour a person’s very soul, taking and taking and taking until there was nothing left but an empty husk, a magically driven corpse overflowing with power. Unable to feel and completely without sympathy or mercy.   
  
Since the Heart’s original body had perished in the war it had taken countless other vessels before they had sealed it, and each one had plunged the world into endless winter.   
  
But they had a fail safe, a system designed specifically so that no winter spirit ever heard it’s lonesome call.   
  
“What could have driven him?” He pondered, crouching to touch the gouges in the ice that formed the first seal. “Every step would have been agony.”   
  
“He almost reached it.” Autumn, a Djinni Bunnymund had never met, stated the obvious. He knew from his briefing by North that the Ifrit had been bound by chains until the Prophet Muhammed had released him, but aside from that the information was painfully thin. However at least he was an actual powerful spirit, Summer was simply a very large salamander, a volcano spirit whose tendency to erupt had given it a name, though it could not speak and tell them it.   
  
Bunnymund felt severely out of place between them, and the boy, who glowered at them from the flower and radiated such a powerful cold could only have felt the same. It was a miracle these two had been able to catch the child at all.   
  
“We were lucky he was so weak from attempting to break through,” the Ifrit explained, “we’re glad you came, we were concerned of what might happen had Winter broken loose after regaining his strength.”   
  
Ah, so it was Winter after all. He had hoped so, it would have been a sorry thing indeed if such a powerful spirit was subservient to something like the two beside him.   
  
“Didn’t ye bind him?” Bunnymund demanded. “We set the rules down for a reason, no point in all these seals if ye didn’t take the first step.”   
  
Autumn bristled, “Of course we did. Do you think we’d invite destruction? Every Winter spirit has a mate, we have been vigilant in this.” the Salamander nodded in agreement, “He” Autumn jerked a thumb at the boy, “tried to take it anyway.”   
  
“That makes no sense.” Bunnymund scowled. Every Winter spirit went through a ceremony to bind their hearts and souls to another. It was their most basic rule, set down after the last war with Winter. The Heart could not call to someone if their own heart was already occupied, Winter simply was not as ruthless as they could be if they loved someone who would be hurt. Winter was powerful and volatile, but passionate and territorial. In the four thousand years between the last war and his joining the Guardians he had never had an issue with any winter spirit who had been soul bonded. “Did their soulmate die?” He demanded, and at the firm shake of two heads he pressed. “Are you certain? Who are they, have you checked in on them? There could have been an attack.”   
  
“Spring is safe, she rarely leaves her forest.” Autumn assured.   
  
“Spring?” That was… unusual. “His match was the Avatar of Spring?” Autumn nodded but the salamander shook it’s head vigorously. “Which is it, yes or no?”   
  
Autumn glared down at Summer, who snorted and licked it’s eyeball. “He ah.. He had no match,” Autumn admitted finally. “If he had been some minor spirit we would have simply dealt with him, but he was an Avatar, and… already more powerful than we.”   
  
Bunnymund recalled from the briefing that there had been a particularly strong cold period some hundred or so years ago, simply dubbed the little ice age, though it had been little more than a global cooling in comparison to the Winters he had faced. Had it spooked these inexperienced Avatars?   
  
Were the Guardians so out of the loop?   
  
“We knew we needed to bind him, but no one came forward to volunteer.” The frustration of the time twisted Autumn’s face into a scowl, “Spring was the only option.”   
  
“Only?” Bunnymund demanded, irritated at these incompetent beings who claimed to rule the world he created.  “What about you?”   
  
“I, ah, what?” Autumn stammered, eyes bulging out of his soot smudged face. “Spring is a GIRL.” he insisted, as if that made her the obvious choice.   
  
And Bunnymund could see it now, as these idiots should have been able to predict it then. “And did she perform her duty as his soulmate?” Bunnymund sneered, watching the Ifrit’s eyes wheel as he searched for an excuse, “Did she keep his heart from the cold?”   
  
“D-duty?” Autumns was incensed. “The instructions were to form a soul bond, n-not to…to perform.” he hissed the world as if it was some blasphemy.   
  
“A soul bond is only one way,” Bunnymund explained, looming over the two who masqueraded as his Avatars, “to bind the heart of Winter to the Earth. They can love no other, and cause no harm to their loved one. But,” he poked a claw tipped finger into the center of the Djinni’s chest, “unrequited love, love they cannot move on from or heal, will fester. The spell doesn’t ask for much, any love will do, familial, platonic, any one of ye could have been a companion to Winter, instead ye left him, that’s the only way the Heart could have called him through the soul bond. No spell is foolproof, even these,” he indicated to the elaborate seals around the heart, “get touched up every few centuries.”   
  
“It’s hardly our fault Spring abandoned the boy.” Autumn muttered obstinately.   
  
“Would it have been different if it’d been ye bound t’him?’ Bunnymund retorted, turning away and walking through the seals. They gave him little resistance, he was one of their creators after all and the heart had never appealed to him.   
  
It had little use for growing flowers.   
  
With a savage twist he removed the wooden stick frozen into the ice, uncaring if the wood splintered, and used his heat to banish the debris until the floor of the cavern was smooth once more. His seals, though breached by Winter, did not dissipate. If the spirit had remained within the circles without falling to the Heart he would have become fodder for the magic within the seal, only by taking the gift of power the Heart offered would he have been able to save himself. But the spirit that walked out of that circle would not have been the spirit that walked in.   
  
It had truly been a miracle those two had stopped him. As it was the boy could already slaughter them, with the Heart he would have crushed them like the thin crunchy layer on top of undisturbed snow.   
  
He brushed passed the two daft so called Avatars, he would be having WORDS with Emily Jane after this, and stalked towards the transparent tulip holding the clearly tiring Avatar of Winter.   
  
The boy was leaning heavily against the petals, eyes closed, breathing heavily. He looked so thin, so worn down. All of that couldn't have been the bindings, Bunny had seen the seals devour a spirit before, had watched it fade before his eyes. Pain, and fear, and the hallowing, sucking void that aged them, fragmented them, before his eyes. This was something else, something that stretched him thin and wore him down to bones.   
  
The boy blinked open bleary, barely focused eyes, so blue they could glow in so pale and drawn a face. Bunny stared down into those eyes as he reached his decision.   
  
"Contact Spring, bring her t'the Warren. We're gonna make this right."   
  
*~*

The first time Jack ended up in trouble with the Seasonal spirits he was barely 25 years old. He hadn’t recalled much of the night before, only that there had been a great gathering of strange foreign spirits in Philadelphia that spring and he had been eager to meet them. The colonies were rarely a suitable place for his own kind, spirits of Turtle Island did their best to avoid the sedentary, often filthy villages and towns that popped up like barnacles along the coastlines. It wasn’t any dislike of the people who inhabited it, Philadelphia had, for a time, been a beacon of prosperity among the spirits of the two lands; the problem was that within the past few decades these spirits had become a little less friendly towards their hosts, a little less like guests. They had once been apologetic of the many crimes their people committed, they were after all bound to their people and did not approve of their actions, now they had seemed to adopt the same attitude as the humans.

It only worsened with the eviction of the Lenape from their lands adjacent to the town.

Jack had hoped this strange new influx of spirits would encourage more open communication between their people, and had against the council of the trees and winds flew from his tiny secluded village to join the other representatives. He had been the only winter spirit among them but that hadn’t bothered him, Sikon was approaching quickly and the others had followed the cooler winds further North or settled down in the high mountains. He, as Frost, extended his reach well into the Thaw, and sometimes even into Summer, and had never felt the need to flee the heat.

 Until he met the Seasonal Avatars.

 No one had ever told him about the rules amongst winter, perhaps no one had thought to ask if he was single, but these three had only looked at him and knew.

 

Just like that he was captured. 

He had faught of course, he hadn't known better, hadn't known how much worse it would make it.

 The ceremony had been like a cattle brand on his heart, claiming him for someone else. Though no one had bothered to introduce them. No one had bothered with anything in regards to him.

 He had woken later. Days? Hours? He hadn't known. His body had been dumped in a snowdrift beside a thawing river, perhaps they had thought it a comfortable bed for him, perhaps they just hadn't cared. SnowBoy had been kneeling beside him, carefully smoothing his hair back from his face.

 They had floated down the river together after that, watching the ice break and drift, and SnowBoy had, finally, explained the laws. That a winter spirits soul was cleaved in two and fused with another. To tie them to this world, so that they loved the Earth their soulmate live in, and would not be tempted to harm it.

 Jack had thought he had already loved the world, but perhaps he was still too young, perhaps he had simply not grown to be cruel yet.

 They had parted ways on the riverbed near his home village, and he had gone to his lake to rest, hurt and confused. SnowBoy had consoled him though, even if he had admitted to never seen it done so callously, the binding was not a cruelty. He assured Jack that his soulmate would seek him out eventually. It was simply what was done.

 They never did though.

 Not even the Seasonal heads would reveal his other half to him when he could find them to pester with questions.

 Ignored, dismissed, abandoned. The brand in Jacks heart burned and bled, until a power, soothing as ice water, called to him. Promised him relief. Promised him company.

 Promised him justice.

 *~*

 Jack woke in a strange bed, in sheets soft as flower petals and warm as gentle sunlight.

 It did little to lessen the hideous sickness in his gut or the pulse beating pain in his head, his mouth was the consistency of dried leaves and when he tried to swallow the taste of bile stung the back of his throat. He crawled his way to the edge of the bed, unsure if it was the strange vertigo upsetting his perceptions or if it really was ovid, which was a strange shape for a bed to be in. He tried to climb over the oyster shell sides but misjudged the distance to the floor and ended up in the exact opposite direction one should be standing. Luckily for his face gravity had always been in his corner and he hadn’t fallen with any true force, but the angle did nothing for his vertigo.

 Unfortunately that was when the door opened, illuminating the room and Jack’s awkward faceplant. Jack scrunched his face up at the light, squinting through the flare of pain in his eyeballs. The shape of someone, presumably tall though he wouldn’t trust perceptions from the floor, was in the doorway watching him. It took him a few seconds to really understand what he saw, he’d met animal spirits, he’d met humanoid spirits, and he’d met a strange pieced together mixture of the two, but he’d never actually seen one so well blended, like a transformer spirit caught between shift.

 “Yer awake, good.” The creature said, his voice was funny, accented but not anything Jack could place in his current state. Kind of sounded English, kind of sounded southern. It was a deep, musical voice, and Jack found he liked it immediately, even if the face that scowled down at him was somewhat less enjoyable.

 “Who are you?” Jack asked, he rolled upright, trusting the slower motion to a straight flip, his head spun regardless. “Wow, alright, hold on.” he crouched and pressed his forehead to a knee hoping the dizzy spell passed.

“Drink this.” A warm clay cup was held out to him and he looked up to see the creature crouching beside him, legs curving awkwardly. His double vision was not helping him. “It’ll help boost yer magic.”

 “Not to be ungrateful or.. or paranoid or anything but… I don't take magic potions from strangers.”

 “Stranger?” The creatures long ears perked up at that, and it huffed a laugh. “That any way to talk to yer soulmate?”


	4. Age of Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Royalty

“The fundamental job of a toddler is to rule the universe.” Lawrence Kutner

*~*

His season, his laws. Isn't that what Jack was always saying, always declaring as he tossed their assistance back in their faces? Power hungry, controlling, possessive little shit. Always had to do things his way.   
  
But this was Aster's season, and that meant it was his laws, his way, his bed.    
  
Aster pinned Jack's hands above his head and felt more than heard the snarl, vibrating against his mouth.   
  
The boy had no idea what he had signed up for, offering himself like some ancient human sacrifice.   
  
He raised his head, smirking down at Jack's young, disheveled face. He looking like a pissed off kitten, hair all mussed, skin flushed. He didn't look at all like the cold, ruthless king of Winter.   
  
And for the next hour, he wouldn't be.    
  
Jack jerked against his restraining hand, such thin wrists Aster could hold them both in one paw. There was challenge in those angry blue eyes, and Aster was torn. Torn between wanting to be gentle to the inexperienced sprite and putting him in his place. To stoke the fires of Jack's sexual appetite or just get it over with. He would never advocate treating a virgin roughly, but this was Jack, infuriating, heartless, needlessly cruel Jack Frost.    
  
Jack, whose heart he could feel beating against his own chest, racing, nervous thing. Jack whose long narrow body pressed against his, arching, straining, fighting the impulse to struggle away.   
  
Jack, who had offered to sacrifice his 300 year long virginity for the sake of spring.   
  
He could feel the tantric energy, almost taste it as it surged in Jack's body, undulating, eager to flow freely between them. Hunger flooded him, he nosed at Jack's neck, clamped his teeth to pulse and felt Jack's spiking heartbeat on his tongue. The winter had been hard even for him, but where it sapped him of energy Jack was full of power from it. He rocked against Jack, listened to the labored breathing. His instincts urged him to taketaketake, but he wouldn't rush this. He would milk the power slowly.    
  
He pushed up, shifted Jack so his legs wrapped around Aster's waist, heard the shaky intake of breath. He watched the anxiety flit across Jack's face, and leaned down to sooth it with quiet murmured reassurances, running lips teeth tongue over Jack's mouth.   
  
It wasn't a cold person who melted under him, who opened to him. 

“You're cute.” Jack had once told him.

Aster had been called that often in his lifetime here on Earth, especially by children, but he had never been called it by an enemy.

The child, what he had mistakenly assumed was a child, had looked at him with eyes filled with adoration, even as it brandished the staff that had frozen him to the cliffside.

And Aster realized, as he attempted to break free, that this, this mere BOY, was the one responsible for the constant cold front, for the interrupting of seasons, for what was coming to be known as the Year Without Summer.

He had introduced himself as the PermaFrost, as if they were at some party and not in the middle of a battle for the survival of the planet. He had let Bunny go, a mere twist of his staff and the ice turned brittle, turned to FROST. Then he had offered his hand like a King, his knuckles scraped raw and chafed red instead of laden with rings, but that in itself was a symbol of title among Winter Spirits. He had fought his way through life and won.

His name was PermaFrost, but the humans called him Jack. 

Aster wanted to retort, that Jack was a name Americans gave people whose identity they didn't know or couldn't pronounce, but the insult had frozen on his tongue, without the boy doing a thing. 

He just couldn’t say something so nasty to a child.

That had been his second mistake, or perhaps an extension of the first. Because Jack was no child, perhaps he had been, at one point, but not then, and not now.

It would always be a mistake to underestimate him.

“Bunny!” Jack’s whine was high and sweet as he clutched at the fur of Bunnymund’s side, pressing himself against the Pooka like an affectionate cat.

“Frost.” He returned between bites, his mood lightening against his will. Jack’s presence always brought joy, whether one wanted it or not. He dispelled tension like he banished warmth.

It was his most deadly of weapons against his enemies, and his friends.

Jack arched back and Bunny pressed a sadistic kiss to his throat, feeling the jittery magic sizzle through his system, scattering his gloomy thoughts.

If he wasn’t careful, he could lose his mind to Frost as well as his heart.

In this way Jack was so innocent, everything within him untouched, an untapped well of power just for him. In the world beyond their room spring was arriving, already there was cold hardy flowers creeping from under the snow. Near two hundred years ago Jack would have killed such brazen plants simply for the sin of existing in his perfect winter, now Aster wondered if he would count each one fondly, knowing he had a hand in their creation.

Signs of Spring, signs that Aster had stolen him away from the cold silent winter to a world all their own.

Or would he curse them as the end of something other than winter?

Two hundred years ago Aster had defeated the King of Winter and halted the Little Ice Age. Two hundred years ago he had imprisoned the villain in a cave deep underground. Two hundred years ago he had saved the planet. 

These were the lies the spirits told, lies they had crafted themselves from the truth the Guardians carefully hid from them.

Because two hundred years ago they lost, instantly, unquestionably, and had very nearly died. Would have, if not for the fact that the King of Winter looked at Bunnymund and said, in a child’s voice: “You're cute” and let them go.

Bunnymund had thought the child misled, had invited him back, to see his world, to see spring in all its glory, but the boy had eyes only for him. In the end what had stopped the war had been Bunny, asking Jack to stay. 

Now here he was, two hundred years later, with Jack sprawled out beneath him. The boy who had once casually pulled the wings off of a struggling butterfly, who had slit the throat of a glacier god, who every year had to be placated and cajoled into releasing the world from his ice, completely melted and at Aster’s mercy. 

Had he known the path they would take would he have still extended the hand of friendship to Jack Frost? Or would he have trapped the child away in the deepest of pits and hoped the prison held?

Who could know?

But if one were to visit the Warren just before spring, if they were to hear the pitiful cries, the tortured screams, they would know that the King of Winter was suffering well for his crimes.


	5. The Light of Long Dead Suns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time Stravel

Time Travel

“Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.” - Robert H. Schuller

~

It happened again. 

Bunnymund could feel the presence as he let the years trickle by. He ignored it mostly, as he was trained to do, but that didn't quiet his curiosity.

Millenia he watched, sifting through time for anomalies and meddlesome travelers intent on changing events, rarely did he feel the brush of his own futurepast.

“Not bad.” the spectre whispered to him through the veil, a distorted blur in his peripheral. The voice echoed maddeningly, so that even his magnificent ears strained to catch the inflection, the timbre, the way the words were pronounced. Only the knowledge of what was said reached him, like the voice of dreamweavers inside his head.

If he concentrated on it he could bring it to the fore, could hear the voice, see the face, know the scene…

But doing so would snap him out of time, send his mind hurtling through the years and into the body of his future self. If it didn't break it completely. There were rooms filled with the empty shells of Pooka who chased their own future.

Bunnymund had no intention of going mad, but the temptation was strong.

He ignored the blur beside him and continued his watch.

“Sorry… bout th.. thing….”

The words faded, spaghettified, and were lost as the spectre was suctioned back to its proper place. Bunnymund did not dwell on it, except that it made something deep in his belly clench and ache as it left.

Other visions had drifted up to him, rising like dust from the sifting sands of time, but none had caused him such…. Longing. Yes, longing was the word. The yearning for something. Like when he was forced to take his allotted resting cycle and wanted only to get back to his studies into world building, his true passion.

It was all the more confounding as he knew what he felt was only residual traces, emotions bleeding through the layers as he synced to his other self in the timestream. Confounding, and vexing. What was his futurepast doing, what was he longing so deeply for?

Bunnymund huffed and put it out of his mind. He was beyond that century now, and had millenia to go in this sector before he could move on and start over. Somewhere in this corner of the universe, in some period of time, he would find his answer. He would not invite his doom by dwelling on it.

*~*

Bunnymund rarely allowed himself frustration, it was a lapse in control with few benefits and plentiful risks. This though, Bunnymund would permit frustration over this.

Dreamsand.

There was Dreamsand in his quarters. Pooka granted themselves only one cycle of rest per carefully selected time measurements based on individual stamina, specifically because sleep left them vulnerable to dreamweavers. 

This was a violation, it was trespass, it was INSULTING. 

Bunnymund threw off his microclimate wrap and stormed his way to the viewing screen of his quarters, lifting the shade and glaring out at the passing star. How dare, how DARE they presume to send him a dream of such.. filth! To think such presumptuous dreamweavers existed, he may not have complete understanding of his subconscious desires during his rest periods, but he was unquestionably certain he would not have a wish that could have been twisted into THAT.

Colored eggs. Indeed!

And running, FROLICKING, unclothed, among the native flora of some planet. Gifting out primitive woven baskets of all things. And beside him, most damning of all, beside him sped a thin streak of blue and white, easily keeping pace with him, laughing, dodging, CIRCLING each other as they traveled.

It was obscene. 

And the voice, that wordless formless voice he could not recall but was certain of its match, the voice of one of the spectres from the futurepast. The apologetic one that had stirred in him a yearning.

Bunnymund bared his teeth at the passing star for the reminder, and the vice in his gut.

*~*

Ombric, the misbehaving Atlantean. How many times did Bunnymund have to pluck him from disaster?

He had not seen a time traveling ship in some while, not since the fall of the Golden Age. There was temptation to drop it off at some Pookan contraband storage, but the only ones left were in the past, and that would disrupt the logs. 

He did check though, as he brought them back to Earth, to make sure there were no mysterious additions from out of time. It was easy enough to sift through the timestream as he traveled distance and time back to Ombric’s proper present. Just to avoid further temptation. 

It wasn't as if he didn't understand Ombric’s position, he also longed for a time where Kozmotis had never fallen, never died, never returned resurrected as king of the horrors of the universe and obliterated eons of his people's work. 

Obliterated his people.

Oh, there was temptation; but how many of those who lost their minds to the timestream had seen their doom and attempted to alter it? How many Pooka were hollowed out attempting to prevent Pitch Black? 

Regardless of his own reservations he had also made a vow: to let time slip past as it would, to uphold the free will of those who could not step outside the river of time and observe it from the shore. Even if all he wanted to do was reach into that river and scoop out every fish that passed, knowing there waited ahead a hungering maw to devour them. His mind had searched for millions of years to find some way around the end of the golden age, if he could just save them, just bring them from their moment of death to the current age he was in, an age without Pitch Black, but the simulations all ended the same. If he took one step off the shore and into the flow of time he would swept away into the body of his other self, and his mind would shatter from the collision.

Still, he couldn’t help but wonder how much of his rush to prevent Ombric from meddling was duty, and how much was preventing a terrible fate from befalling him? That magnificent mind, lost… Ombric was different, Ombric could toe the waters of any time he had not lived so long as he did not interfere, but Bunnymund had been in the universe since the beginning, had watched the first light burst into creation. 

As they arrived at Earth he felt something jarring, something he had not felt since he had been a young buck on Time Watch duty, before he had been promoted to World Building. Before he had been the only one left to take up any of the duties at all. 

Resonance.

The blur appeared before him so suddenly he could not avoid it, as if it could physically block him from returning to Earth. A shifting thing, billions of transparent layers overlapping to give but an impression of form and color. He had always seen them out of the corner of his eye, drifting up to him as he watched time streak past. This one was in his face. 

Shaken he reached out a hand to it, every strand of fur on end, until he could almost pretend he was touching it. It was shorter than him, slimmer, but it shoved itself into his space fearlessly.

“What are you?” It demanded in that maddening slithering line of a voice, a voice he well knew. A voice that had haunted his rest cycles until the dreamweavers had faded from the universe and all his sleep became dark and silent.

How easily he could just.. bring it into focus. 

Oh yes, he knew temptation. 

He would let Ombric have his little ship, let him watch and learn, but he would not allow another to alter the course of that stream.

That way led only madness.

*~*

“Sandy.”

The dreamweaver smiled and greeted him, bringing his cloud down and forming steps in invitation.

“Ah, no, thank you.” He declined, ears back in distaste. The others were getting better at reading his body language, which helped for the cultural misunderstandings, particularly with North, still he was practicing being more communicative. “I’m still not.. Comfortable with heights, after the trip to the moon.” 

He had never crashed before, he had always known it was a possibility, entering and leaving the atmosphere. But he himself had never crashed, never come close to a crash. So crashing had been… not good for him.

He’d be keeping his feet firmly on the ground for the foreseeable future. 

Sandy understood, the others did too in a way but they had their own ideas of how to help. Flight was.. it was PART of them, part of what they were made up of, even North with his sleigh. Being the only earthbound Guardian these days left him the odd man- pooka out. Sandy though, accepted his decline without offense and hovered beside him.

“I needed to ask.. about my rest cycles..” Sandy cocked his head with a question mark. “My sleep.” Sandy nodded, rolling his wrist to indicate Bunny continue; it was hard bringing this up, but it was the second year in a row. “The dreamsand, Sandy. I appreciate it, but can you.. Can you stop?”

For a moment the shifting sands were stilled, no question mark, no exclamation, just clear silent surprise on Sandy’s face, then his eyebrows drew together in confusion and he started signing so fast Bunny found it hard to keep up.

“It’s not that,” he assured his anxious friend, “I understand you’re just trying to be nice, but I’m.. I’m tired Sandy. I used to only sleep a day out of an Earth year and now, with all of this Guardian business, I’m sleeping close to once a month. I need the rest Sandy and the dreams, the dreams disturb me.” Sandy’s look of alarm made the guilt in his gut give his heart a good hard kick. He looked away, like a coward, and did his best to explain himself. “I know you’re dreams are just wishes Sandy, wishes and dreams are important but… the truth is... Sandy I CAN’T wish for that. I’m sorry but.. It’s too risky.”

Soft hands, deep voice, blue eyes. They haunted him, tormented him. A temptation always in the back of his mind, beaconing, and him standing unable to follow. Knowing it would be his death, but oh how he wanted. Every time he woke from his dream he was aching and hollow, more tired than before, but yearning to slip out of the timestream and join his tormentor on the shoreline, follow him to the date where they could finally be together. Though it cost him his sanity. He w

Sandy lured him out of his thoughts with a hand on his shoulder and he turned, meeting those knowing eyes. Small hands gave his bicep and comforting pat and assured him that the dreamsand would stop. That was all he could ask, for dreamless sleep.

Though it ignited a pain within him all the same.

~*~

Jack Frost. Of all the legendary figures on this planet Tsar Lunar had to choose Jack bleeding Frost. 

If Manny hadn’t… if he hadn’t drug that mongrel of an ice spirit into this mess he could have lived on not knowing. Not figuring out. 

“If you’re not a kangaroo, what are you?” the little ratbag had demanded and he had felt it, the resonance, except he wasn’t on the shores of the timestream, he wasn’t outside the chronological order of his life, there were no futurepast spectres here. It was just Jack, and every hope Bunny had inside him closed up like a touch phobic fern.

“I’m a Bunny.” he spat, because who was this creature to demand the truth from him. That he had searched through the rise and fall of civilizations, the creation and destruction of planets, in and out of time, and for what? For this? “The Easter Bunny.” This was not his promised future. This was not his wish. This was not his dream. This was a nightmare, and Bunnymund destroyed nightmares. “People. Believe. In. Me.”

He watched, validated, as Jack’s bloated ego collapsed behind his blank little face, watched the understanding of just what he was dim the light in his eyes. Good. Let him wallow in it. 

~*~

He had thought his torture would end there, discovering the identity of the one he had… deluded himself into loving, into believeing he was destined to find, had simply been Jack Frost all this time was dream shattering enough. He had been forced to spend even more time in his contemptable company due to the extreme cercumstances they now found themselves in, short of tooth fairies, belief, and time. 

He didn’t think he could hate Pitch more. 

The resonance had clung to him all the while as they dodged and weaved and chased eachother through the cities. “Is that a challenge cottontail?” was all it took to start, and suddenly they were dancing. He had almost convinced himself he was having fun.

Bunny tried not to dwel on how close it was to that first dream, the only one to stick with him, of eggs and baskets and a streak of blue beside him. A wish he only knew himself to have the moment he took the Oath.

Then came Pitch. Then went Sandy. Then went Easter.

And now they were here.

“Sorry about the.. Kageroo thing.” Jack had appologized softly, crouched beside him overlooking the continental tunnels. Eggs as far as could be seen were marching, a stream of colors flowing past. And them, together, on the shore.

He had flown off with that child in his arms, soft and warm and so trusting and Bunny had forgotten what it was like to hold something that wasn’t a plant or an egg. He had never bothered with worrying for his own passing time before, time held no countdown for him, no set finish line, only a destination, only a promised meeting.

Now though, as he watched Jack dissapear into his tunnels he felt it, the confusing and frustrating longing. To turn it back, take it back. It had never, never been so strong as that moment. Not even as the universe emptied around him and all that was left of his people, his friends, his life had been in the past. He had stood on the shores of time and watched Pitch Black destroy all he had cared for, but still he knew the risks. 

But Jack, so giving and kind in the face of adversity, he had misshandled Jack. 

Now he risked losing him forever.

“He has to go.” he told the others, and they all knew it. For all that he had shouted at the sprite, the lies he had flung, “We never should have trusted you!” they knew the truth.

Jack had no belief base. Sandy was gone, the fairies were gone, Easter was gone. Maybe they would hold out until Christmas, maybe the beilef of the older children to who dissapointment was no stranger, the smallest children who could be distracted and look easily to the future, maybe their belief would hold on. Maybe the Guardians would hold with them. 

But Jack... Jack would not survive as a Guardian. There was simply not enough to supoort him. Without his own believers he would fade.

If they were to end, Bunny would not drag him down with them.

And perhaps that was his fate, their resonance tied to this moment, when he would chose to save this one single life. 

It was just his own damn fault he’d gone and fallen in love.


	6. Cast Your Stones Like Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, trading Fusions with Crossovers because my TinMan/ROTG fic is being a butt.
> 
> Some warnings, because Lexx is not a... easy universe to cross into. Very dark, very grimy, very very sexually uncomfortable. So there are mentions of sex slaves, mutilation, deformation, abuse against children, uneven power dynamics. 
> 
> Pretty much: Nightlight fails and Pitch Wins au. Bunny is kept alive to create new worlds for the Fearlings to feed off, Pitch shows up every few decades to torment him. 
> 
> Watch LEXX, the original three movies (and the tv show if you like it) its great and horrible and I love it so much.

“This last specimen of a now extinct culture of romantic dreamers merits a punishment beyond death.”

-Devine Shadow, LEXX

~*~

“I have a gift for you.” Pitch Black's voice was sweet and putrid as rotting fruit and had Bunnymund’s gag reflex rebelling against him.

“I thank you, Merciful Shadow,” Bunny bowed deep long ears brushing the ground, not betraying the horror his heart swam through. Pitch’s last gift had been a boy, barely more than a child, stripped bare of dignity and humanity and tied blindfolded to Bunny’s bed. He had rushed to console the poor creature, careful as he covered him and removed his bindings, but once the boy’s eyes were open his mind was lost.

“I have finally chased it down, that shooting star.” Pitch paced to the window, his deep hood concealing the decrepit rotting corpse he wore around his vile soul. “The last shooting star.”

Bunnymund felt his throat constrict, but stayed in his prone position. His ears, pride of all Pooka, must never leave the floor while His Divine Shadow visited.

“It was a personal vendetta, left over from my most distant predecessor. The dream that made him.. me fall.” Pitch turned to him, and the sound of robes on the stone floor of his home was like ghosts haunting him. “I wished to… share in the victory. It is not every eve that beings as old as we execute each other.”

A whisper, like drifting sand, and an item was placed near his ears. Bunnymund still did not raise his head to look.

“The dreams were pure, the purest I've had in eons, purer even than your own brood. It was a superb final supper.” Pitch drifted away, his silk robes like the sifting sand in Bunny’s ears. “Soon I will change hosts, these new bodies.. they age so quickly…” The hand Pitch raised was skeletal and spotted with age. “We need new worlds Bunnymund. New dreams. These humans, they are weak. You should have grown your family long ago.” His voice chided.

Bunnymund refused to rise to the bait, to retort that every new world he created for the 20,000 planets was sucked dry of dreams before a dominant species even established itself, the twisted monstrous creatures left in the word devoid of joy becoming pawns in Pitch’s game of fear.

His heart wept for what Pitch named the cluster lizards, the gentle animals his Jack had nurtured in secret hoping to keep them from the Shadow’s clutches. Their own sweet children.

Pitch had torn them from Jack and devour their innocence, tossing their misshapen husks into a gladiatorial arena to kill for sport. It had near broken his love’s mind.

Again.

“How fares your whore?” Pitch asked, casual as ever, as if ‘whore’ were a perfectly suitable replacement for ‘spouse’ or ‘family’.

“He has learned his lesson well, my Shadow.” Bunny placated, “He will not hoard his resources again.”

“I am pleased to hear this. We cannot permit selfishness to take root in our civilization.” Pitch’s voice was a soft sigh. “They were too hasty in his creation, I have reprimanded the technicians and altered the process since.” Pitch would never admit fault, but Jack’s creation had been his own whim. An attack on the heart of the last Pooka. “Rest assured he will be replaced, should he displease you again.”

Replaced. Bunny closed his eyes against the sudden pain. Expired, broken down for parts and swapped for some other poor soul brainwashed into servitude. A love slave, devoted to the first being they saw.

It had taken Bunnymund near a hundred years to undo the damage, and the boy still slipped back into his programming when distressed.

His memories, however, had never been salvaged.

“You are most gracious, Divine Shadow.”

“I admit I was impressed by your resolve, it has been near three centuries. Hardly a lengthy stretch for gods such as us, but the boy was originally human.” Pitch’s voice took on the edge of one who spoke through a smile. “The process heightened his libido to such that he can’t possibly live without fulfilment. Tell me, did you make him satisfy himself while you struggled with that despicable conscious of yours, or did you simply bed him in a manner that did not result in children until now?”

Bunny clamped his own teeth down on his tongue to keep from sucking in too deep a breath. Any change was detectable to Pitch, and if he let himself breathe too deep he might let himself feel, might let himself cry. Such actions were always followed by other irrational outbursts, like rage and violence.

Pitch was a parasite of emotion.

A foot clothed in darkness dug under his chin and forced his head up, until Bunny was staring into Pitch’s hungry golden eyes, still his ears remained brushing the floor on either side of him. “Tell me how you had him.”

This was Pitch’s sadistic pleasure, it mattered not to a being such as this Shadow what others did with their bodies, but to see a Pooka, once so prudishly civilized and morally superior to all those around them, brought low by something as base as lusts. As if he were any other lowly organic. The shame burned like bile in the back of his throat but still he answered. “In every way I could.”

It didn’t matter if it was truth or not, only that Pitch could get him to say it. A Pooka’s pride was in his appearance, in how he conducted himself.

“I hunger,” Pitch told him, and Bunny could see it. “Your sheltered spawn have awakened my dormant appetite and the dream giver has curbed it little. I had forgotten what power pure dreams contained.” Pitch crouched beside the hourglass where the black sands continued to fall. “I gift you this weapon, this dream sand, to restore and fight back against my darkness.” His eyes burned like suns beneath his hood. “I will gather the cream of the 20,000 planets, the shining jewels of my realm, and I will give them to you. Return to them their dreams, so that I may feast again.”

Then he was gone, gliding out of the room on the whispers of the dead. The Megashadow would soon rise from this humble primitive planet and return to the Cluster where His Divine Shadow ruled.

Bunny didn’t lift his head, simply pressed it back to the cool stone and breathed.

He wanted to sob.

He couldn’t do this again, couldn’t fight again. Hadn’t he lost enough?

But if he did, if he brought dreams back to the Light Dimension, would Pitch be satisfied? If there were other prey to be had would he, perhaps, leave his mate alone?

Bunny raised himself out of his bow and made his way sluggishly to his room, wanting to crawl, to beg, to weep at the feet of the one he sought. In his bed, still limp and listless, was the man he had come to love against his will. Whom he had broken time and time again in his attempt to heal, like the resetting of a bone.

He had seen other love slaves, their perfection, their single minded devotion, and their quietly expiring life forces. They were simple, short lived creatures ignorant of their purpose. Jack was not. He had never permitted Jack that one luxury.

The gift of unknowing.

Now he existed, eternal, hating himself and his heart even as he struggled to find truth in his love.

“Jack?” Bunny ran his hand through his beloved's soft hair, white as starlight, and felt the clamminess of his skin. Jack had cried himself to sleep again.

They had found peace. They had even come to accept that they would never know if Jack would have loved him without the brainwashing. Still the one thing Pitch had tormented him with the most, the greatest change in Jack’s nature, had been taken from them to feed the Shadow’s hunger.

In Jack’s arms he still held the body of their child, their newest, now their only. It had lasted but an hour, even with Bunnymund’s interference.

The blow Pitch had struck, stealing away their living brood and perverting them into monsters was far worse than even the great Shadow himself could possibly know. Pookan genetics were a mess, their birthing rates abysmal even in the height of the Golden Age. Pitch had created Jack to be the perfect companion, a false hope and a way to torment the last of the Pookas. He had no idea just how unviable their half breed children would be.

Still, Bunny could not fight Jack on this. He found he could deny Jack very little, as he had taken all other comforts in this terrible universe and destroyed them. Jack had no memories, no false beliefs, and no end in sight. He was a tool and always would be. A kiss of death passed from one enemy to another.

He carefully removed the mess of fabric that contained their malformed child from his lover’s arms and brought it to the coffin they had prepared. Bunny had built more of the boxes than cradles in their attempts at children, these days he just assumed the worst.

He would not burn the corpse without Jack, but neither could he allow his mate to cling to it.

Jack would insist they try again, no matter how irresponsible bringing life into this cruel and dark place would be, and Bunnymund would be helpless to refuse him. Unless he could find some way to change things they would find themselves in this place again, with corpses and monsters in place of children and a shadow always cast upon them.

Looking down at the small creature in its box, deformed and dead but still so precious, he felt his heart fracture more, soon it would be in so many pieces it might as well be sand. He could add it to an hourglass and watch it fall hopelessly through the void, turn it over and over again with each new chance he took. Still it would sift and fall and eventually time would run out.

~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In an Ideal World obviously the Guardians would be part of the Heretics, and rebuilding the Light Dimension after His Divine Shadow is defeated. Following canon, Bunny is the one who got the rebels their Intel and built them Bug Bomb (who is best bomb okay he did his best).
> 
> Epic space adventures to be had, Bunny and Jack need to just.. Stop being broken.
> 
> Go Watch Lexx, but be forewarned it is not a family friendly scifi space adventure. It is, however, my second Favorite after Babylon 5. (and sob because now you know the Cluster Lizards are Jack's babies.)


End file.
